Giri giri!! I've just barely made it, as it's 11:23 pm on June 17th in my time zone, so it's still technically his birthday here! Just wanted to share something I made with love.

I decided to make a strawberry shortcake cake , like a Japanese-style cake, from scratch. The thing is, I've never done any baking from scratch before, and the whole thing was utter fail from start to finish. But I just kept going, no matter how awful it turned out, putting all my love for Nino into it. I'm kind of reminded of the story he once told about a girl that had hung chocolates on his door for Valentine's Day, and when he found them they were not only in pieces from her nervousness, but she had accidentally made them with salt instead of sugar, but he ate the whole thing anyway because she had put all of her feelings into it. This is essentially the story of my cake, which is not so much a cake as a frisbee. A dirty-looking frisbee you throw in the trash.
( But anyway, this is for you, Nino! I love you! Happy birthday!! But anyway, this is for you, Nino! I love you! Happy birthday!! Collapse )

UNNNFF.

Sorry for spamming with two posts in one day, but I have decided to post here daily as a form of study.  If you want to be filtered out of these Japanese study posts (or any other posts), please leave me a comment, and I will completely understand.

( Discussion of this study project: Image-A-Day TranslationCollapse )



Extra: sea air/sea breeze; ocean and atmosphere: 海気　or 潮風

I don't have my textbook with me, so I'll try my best with the writing part.

Edit: this is now a corrected version thanks to Lang-8.

ある日、私は智くんと一緒に海釣りをしました。よかったよね～　舟が大きくて、空が広くて、大海がすごくきれいでした。カバンには竿が三本ありました。全部智くんのでした。また、智くんは魚のためにバケツを持ってきました。椅子にすわりながら、智くんは私に釣り方を教えてくれました。何時間か釣りをしながら、潮風を感じたり、雲を見たりしました。完璧な日でした。

I'm going to start studying for December's JLPT today.  In some countries, it's now offered in July, but not in mine.  :(  The new levels are N5 (the lowest) to N1 (crazy fluent).  I feel confident that I will be able to pass N4.  I wonder if I can study enough to take the N3, but I suppose I will decide that when it's time to register (in September, I think?).   I believe a score of 60% is considered passing.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if that's true, it's very reassuring!

Anyone else taking the JLPT this year?  Any study books/sites you can recommend that are accessible in the US?

嬉しい！！  Finally got my own copy of Ohno Satoshi's artbook Freestyle!  As I expected, it is so much better looking at the actual pictures, rather than scans.  Not only are they much clearer and more detailed, but there's also a kind of tactile pleasure to be gained from holding the book, touching the pages.  Ah, so happy.

Anyone who knows Arashi knows that Ohno is an insanely gifted artist.  I am still blown away by the range of his work.  On tv, he draws a lot of quick caricatures, and from those, people seem to say, hey, that guy's pretty good - definitely better than average.  But then, if we dig a little deeper, he shows us almost photo-realistic drawings, paintings, resin sculpture, mixed material sculpture, photography, graffiti art... all with a supremely unexpected, yet highly exceptional talent.  Though he would vehemently deny it, I truly think he's a genius - to be able to convey the contents of his mind onto paper (or whatever medium he's using, including acting, and dance, since he is tremendously exceptional at that as well, without debate) so thoroughly, so spectacularly - it's just so moving.  My mother keeps trying to figure out how we can get him to show his work at a gallery in my hometown of Sarasota, FL, a place where art (and fishing!) is highly prized.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Caricature-style man with near photo-realistic camel.  Unfortunately, the detail can't be conveyed through this little picture.  This really showcases Ohno's style.  If I saw this and didn't know it was his, I would say that it reminds me of his work.


A quick, 3-minute caricature he drew of the adorable j-idol Becky.  While this might not necessarily showcase his talent for realism, it reveals the beautiful mind and emotion he puts into to every piece of art, no matter how impromptu.  I'm not sure if you can really see it through this screencap, but he he has drawn her eyes as sunflowers, "because there are sunflowers in Becky's eyes," he said matter-of-factly.  What a beautiful thing to say.  What a beautiful thing to think.


Scan by ~Kaishi.  I encourage anyone reading this to go to that link and download the zipped scans of his book, Freestyle.  Even if his style is not something you normally prefer, there's no way you won't appreciate the talent and feeling that goes into each of his creations.

Got my Wii today!  \^o^/   Whooped it up making myself and Arashi Mii characters.

Turns out I suck at baseball.  And I really want more games.  Like Sport Resort and Mario & Sonic Winter Olympic Games, or whatever it's called.  And of course Super Mario Brothers Wii (has nothing to do with the fact that Nino does CMs for it.... that was a lie.  It has everything to do with it).

I'm not much of a gamer.  Can you guys recommend some good Wii games, especially ones that you have to move around for?

Previously in this LJ, I made a list of all of the dramas I had seen in the hopes that someone would take a look at it and give me some good drama recommendations.  It worked!  But though I have updated the list several times, I don't like how it's set up - it's very NEWS-member-centric.  Making a new list, and for now, I'm just going to alphabetize them.

Can any of you please give me recommendations for good Japanese dramas series/movies?

( List of every drama I"ve seen in the entire three years since I learned of their existenceCollapse )
Anything you guys can throw out there would be fantastic.  I am kind of interested in Japanese actresses at the moment, especially Toda Erika, Nagasawa Masami, and Aragaki Yui.  And I want to look into Yonekura Ryoko, but I don't know where to start, so if you've liked one of her dramas, please share.

Thanks in advance!

Woot!  American speed skater Apolo Ohno has just won his 7th Olympic medal, more than any other US athlete has ever won in the Winter Olympics!

I am not a big watcher of televised sports, but the Olympics (and World Cup Soccer) are fun, especially when the sport is as exciting as short track speed skating.  Within the space of just a couple of minutes - short track speed skating is, as you may have guessed, short and fast - I get so high with excitement that I have to force myself not to shout out, lest my roommate think I'm having an inappropriate personal moment alone in my bedroom.  Which I might be, what with all the hot guys in tight unitards.  I have never taken an interest in speed skating before now, but then again, I had never known that there was an athlete with the name Ohno, and that he was hot.

Shallow?  You bet.  Here are the athletes I am watching, and why.  By the way, it doesn't really have anything to do with which country they come from.  Nope.

( Yurase, yurase, yurase...Collapse )

More Japanese cooking!  I am slowly but surely increasing my repertoire of Japanese-style recipes.  With mecha mecha skillz like these, I'm sure to hook myself a good man at some point (and by skillz, I mean I can follow a recipe XD; and by good man, I mean someone like Ohno Satoshi, who thinks just about everything tastes pretty good, no matter how nasty it is XP ).

Today, I made Japanese-style hamburgers.  Hanbaagaa. ^.^ You know, the small ones with the sauce, sans bun? 

Meaty.  As it turns out, they are more like meatloaf than regular American hamburgers, and the sauce reminds me of barbeque sauce.  But they were good.  I like them small.  Take that as you will.  XD

Also, because I've seen this featured on a variety of Arashi's, um... variety shows, I decided to try making something with lotus roots.  This turned out to be:
Fried lotus chips.  They look really creepy/amazing as they start to brown, as the patterns in the root are brought out.  These were good - I dipped them in Thai spicy-sweet sauce, whatever that's called, but even ketchup would do, I think.


Kinpira renkon.   Not as good as the kinpira gobo I made last year, but I liked the texture of the renkon and the sweetness of the carrots.


On my list for the future:
Kanitama - Egg & crab omelet. Oh-chan made this on Mago Mago Arashi.
Hayashi rice - Ryuusei no Kizuna!
Curry rice from scratch (not those blocks of pre-made curry)
Omurice - continue to work on it.  It's easy to make, but not easy to make well.  For me, anyway.
Proper tamago yaki.  I tried making it a few months ago, but it was really half-assed.
Try making chicken karaage again - everytime I make it, there's a build-up of excess potato starch all over it.  Anyone know how not to have this happen?
Try making Osaka-fuu okonomiyaki again, just because it was so good.  And because my friend Keipurin did at least half of the steps, so I need to learn to make it completely on my own.

Holy Asian grocery, Batman!